


irregular code

by WelcomeToTheBadlands



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artificial Intelligence, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Rey as an AI but also as a human, Romantic Fluff, Soft Ben Solo, based on reylo_prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24086431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelcomeToTheBadlands/pseuds/WelcomeToTheBadlands
Summary: Rey started the day with a joke. “I believe that humans like humor,” She tells him as he sips his caf. She just wants to see him smile. She doesn’t know why, she shouldn’t be able to care, but something concerns her about the way he lives his life. Everything in her databases tells her that it is not normal. He exhibits signs of depression and she wants to do something to help him but she’s not equipped to do that. “So, I will tell a joke that is customarily known as a dad joke.”“Oh kriff,” He swore. “Please don’t,”
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34
Collections: Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	1. Chapter 1

The first time that he talks to her, he’s just botched a mission. She was installed the very next day in his room to surveil him as punishment. It was another little bit of his freedom that was sacrificed for the Dark Side, and for the First Order. “She can talk, by the way.” The tech tells him. She’s a tan woman with a tunic that’s unregulated and piercing eyes. “If you need that,” He says nothing until the woman leaves. 

The first thing he asks the A.I. is what her name is. He figured that if he’s to be watched twenty-four-seven, he might as well know who’s watching him. “R.3.I.” The AI tells him. 

“Can I call you Rey then?” 

“You can call me whatever you please, Sir.” She told him. “Is there something that you wish for me to call you.” 

“Kylo,” He said. 

“Updating records,” He paused, not really sure why he had any desire to keep talking to this computer. “Records complete.” She said. “Is there any other way that I may be of use?” Kylo thought that he would be annoyed by having a talking AI in his room, surveilling him at all times, but the one thing he can say is that at least her voice is soothing. 

“Are you just used for surveillance?” 

“I have many uses,” Rey told him. “I can regulate the temperature in your room, I can deadlock your door, and I also have a talk mode.” 

“What is ‘talk mode’?” 

“It allows me to conversate more freely with you, with restrictions set for your sleep hours.” This is what really caught Kylo’s attention because he was pretty sure that if Snoke knew about that he wouldn’t let him have this technology. “My goal is to make sure that you’re healthy and happy.” She says in this happy tone. Ben wasn’t sure that artificial intelligence could be happy. 

“Can you activate talk mode?” 

“Happily!” 

The cheeriness was going to take a bit of getting used to, but Kylo knew that he could deal with it. He spent the rest of the day fiddling with her, getting the settings just right, but when he was done, Rey said, “I noticed that you didn’t set sleep restrictions on my Talk Mode. I am very intuitive, but I’m not accustomed to human sleep hours so I run the risk of keeping you up.” 

“It’s fine,” He said, “the restrictions aren’t necessary.” 

“My databases say that humans require eight hours of sleep,” She said, this time with concern edging into her voice. 

“Rey, it’s fine.” It’s then that she decides not to push. 

__

Rey started the day with a joke. “I believe that humans like humor,” She tells him as he sips his caf. She just wants to see him smile. She doesn’t know why, she shouldn’t be able to care, but something concerns her about the way he lives his life. Everything in her databases tells her that it is not normal. He exhibits signs of depression and she wants to do something to help him but she’s not equipped to do that. “So, I will tell a joke that is customarily known as a dad joke.” 

“Oh kriff,” He swore. “Please don’t,” 

But Rey is insistent on telling it because she wants to see him laugh. “I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down!” 

He doesn’t laugh. He just sighs. 

Rey feels like she’s let him down. 

She records that. He starts getting dressed and he asks, “So how much footage do you send to Snoke.” 

“I do not send any videos unless I believe that you are in danger,” She told him, “that would be a violation of privacy.” 

“But he said that he’s putting you in here to surveil me,” 

“Well then, I guess that he didn’t read my manual all the way through. I am a benevolent AI, I don’t violate privacy— well— any more than this I guess. I compile a video to look as mundane as possible to send to the person that has requested it.” That makes Kylo almost smirk. 

Rey records that in her databases. “Well then,” he tells her, “thank you for that.” 

“Is that satisfactory?” 

“Yes,” He said, “very.” 

Rey’s programming does something weird, and she almost says something else, but then her programming corrects itself and she says, “Where are you going?” 

“Training,” He replied. 

“When will you be back?” 

“I don’t know,” 

“Is there a certain way you want the room set for when you come back,” 

“Uh— just set it at a comfortable temperature on the cooler side,” He shrugged and then left. Rey does what she’s told, but she’s bored without Kylo more. She wanted to talk to him more. So, she goes through the records she has of him. 

There she notices that his mattress isn’t great. 

She orders him a new one, even though she knows that she should wait. 

__ 

Kylo isn’t sure what to think of Rey. On the one hand, she is very cheery and he could probably use that more in his life. On the other hand, it’s almost like she cares and he can’t deal with that. She ordered him a bigger mattress and made it a priority matter, so after he came back from his training, tired and exhausted, there’s a new mattress waiting for him. “What is this?” 

“I ordered a new mattress,” Rey tells him, and she sounds so excited that Kylo’s anxiety is almost immediately calmed down. “I thought that perhaps this could help your sleeping problem.” 

“There were people in this room?” 

“Only droids,” Rey reassured him, “no humans.” That calms him further. 

“Is this to your satisfaction,” Kylo sighed and decided that it was better to lay down on the mattress and see for himself. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he wasn’t expecting the mattress to be so comfortable. “There’s a remote on the nightstand to adjust everything if you wish for the mattress to be softer or firmer, but I thought that you could use it.” 

“Thank you, Rey.” 

Instead of repeating her question,  _ Is this to your satisfaction?  _ She asks a different question. “Does it make you happy?” Ben doesn’t answer that question.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as he came back from a trip that Snoke had sent him on, he looked exhausted. The first thing that she said to him was, “Are you okay?” She knew that it wasn’t the customary greeting but her programming told her that he was unwell at the moment. He was kind of swaying as he got undressed, and he didn’t answer. “Kylo,” She said, “please tell me if you require medical assistance.”

“What?” He said, his voice was low and quiet. “No. No. I don’t need medical assistance.”

“Are you sure? You seem—off.”

“Glad to know that you care,” He mumbled and then sank down into his mattress. “I’m just tired,”

“Oh.” She said. “How much sleep have you gotten?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I do,” She said, “it’s quite literally my job to care about you.” He was silent for a while, and R.3.I wondered if she had said something wrong, because at this point, he started crying.

“Just leave me alone,” He said. R.3.I didn’t talk to him for most of the night, but when he still wasn’t asleep yet she ordered some tea to be delivered to his room. When it came he looked up at the ceiling, probably trying to figure out how to look at her. Then he said, “Thank you.” In a quiet tone. R.3.I didn’t know what he was feeling. She didn’t know if it would be bad to talk to him now, even though every part of her program wanted to.

She didn’t.

“Are you mad at me?” He asked.

“I’m not quite sure that I’m capable of that.” She said. “I’m just trying to follow your orders,”

“Oh,” He said, “well you can talk to me again. I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier,” She was quiet for another minute before saying anything.

“Okay,” Pause. “Is there anything I could do to make you happy?”

“I’m not sure,” Kylo told her.

**

“Is there something that I can do to make you happy?” Echoed in his head for what seemed like hours after R.3.I had said this to Kylo. He was unsure of why it made him feel so sad. It was something that an Artificial Intelligence was programmed to say, but still, he hadn’t had anyone be that nice to him in a long time.

“I’m not sure,” He had told her, because he had no idea what would make him happy. He just went to sleep that night. He needed it.

The next day when he woke up, R.3.I said, “I think that you need to take the day off.”

“I can’t do that. Snoke will not be pleased,”

“I don’t care. I’m only concerned about your health.” She said.

“Thank you for the concern, but I have to get up. Okay?”

She was quiet for a minute. Ben wondered who could’ve possibly programmed emotion into an actual artificial intelligence. He kind of wanted to get to meet whoever did that, but at the same time the amount of emotion in her voice kind of scared him. “When you come back, do you promise to rest?” R.3.I asked him.

“I promise,” He said, and he finished getting dressed. When he was done, he could tell that R.3.I wanted to say something. There was just this pause in the air, but the lights on her control module were going into overdrive.

“Kylo?” She finally started.

“Yes, R.3.I?” He asked her.

“Stay safe,”

“It’s only training,”

“I know,” She told him, “but still. I want you to remember to take care of yourself and rest when your body feels like it needs it. You deserve to not feel so bad all the time,”

“No, I don’t.” He muttered to himself. He thought that he said it quiet enough so that R.3.I didn’t hear him, but it turned out that she did.

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t have time to get into this right now,” He was starting to get frustrated, so he just left.

**

When he came back, R.3.I did not greet him. She had been trying to compile a way to talk to him all day and she was utterly more confused than she had been when she first started being there for Kylo. She felt like he wasn’t always entirely truthful with her, and that was hard because how was she supposed to function if she couldn’t cater to his needs?

She thought about options, and she thought about contacting her creator for help, but when she did nothing happened. She assumed that the First Order stripper her of the ability to be able to do so when it was installing her.

Great.

Kylo silently paced around his room for a while and then punched a wall. That was not healthy.

R.3.I’s data bases had told her as much. She wanted to stop him, but all she could do was speak. She waited for whatever was going on to die down and he was sitting on his bed again. “Studies say that hugs often improve a human’s mood.” She began. “But I cannot do that, unfortunately. It sounds like a very pleasant experience that I would like to get to do.” He looked up. His body language said that he was sad. “So instead, I would like to say that if I could physically comfort you right now, I would. I know that you think that you don’t deserve to be healthy and you don’t deserve to feel your best because of something that you did, but I can say firmly that you do deserve all of those things. I like the human belief that making bad choices doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person,” She paused and Kylo could feel himself shaking a little, “I happen to think that you are a very good person who just happens to be really sad. And I’m sorry that you’re sad. Because I don’t want you to be sad. I’m sorry that I can’t make you happy to your satisfaction either, but just know that I will not abandon you and you can talk to me about everything.”

Kylo was quiet for a moment, and then let out a little bit of a shaky sob, before saying, “Thank you.” There was another pause and he said, “I’m just tired right now. I want to sleep. But thank you for telling me that, R.3.I. You made me feel better.”

“I did?” She sounded hyper again.

“Yes, you did.”

“Oh, good. I’m glad you feel better. Have sweet dreams, Kylo.”

“Thank you, R.3.I.”


End file.
